Chapter 1

THE WHITE SHADOW.

We are no other than a moving row
Of magic shadow-shapes, that come and go

Round with this sun-illumined lantern, held
In midnight by the master of the show.

A moment’s halt--a momentary taste
Of being from the well amid the waste--

And lo! the phantom caravan has reached
The nothing it set out from. Oh, make haste!

Ah, Love! could you and I with him conspire
To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,

Would not we shatter it to bits--and then
Remould it nearer to the heart’s desire!

FITZGERALD.

THE WHITE SHADOW.

Listen, then, love, and with your white hand clear Your forehead from its cloudy hair.

“Three great hulking cousins,” said she, closing her gray eyes disdainfully.

We accepted the rebuke in astonished silence. Presently she opened her eyes, and seemed surprised to see us there yet.

“O,” she said, “if you think I am going to stay here until you make up your minds--”

“I’ve made up mine,” said Donald. “We will go to the links. You may come.”

“I shall not,” she announced. “Walter, what do you propose?”

Walter looked at his cartridge belt and then at the little breech-loader standing in a corner of the arbour.

“Oh, I know,” she said, “but I won’t! I won’t! I won’t!”

The uncles and aunts on the piazza turned to look at us; her mother arose from a steamer-chair and came across the lawn.

“Won’t what, Sweetheart?” she asked, placing both hands on her daughter’s shoulders.

“Mamma, Walter wants me to shoot, and Don wants me to play golf, and I--won’t!”

“She doesn’t know what she wants,” said I.

“Don’t I?” she said, flushing with displeasure.

“Her mother might suggest something,” hazarded Donald. We looked at our aunt.

“Sweetheart is spoiled,” said that lady decisively. “If you children don’t go away at once and have a good time, I shall find employment for her.”

“Algebra?” I asked maliciously.

“How dare you!” cried Sweetheart, sitting up. “Oh, isn’t he mean! isn’t he ignoble!--and I’ve done my algebra; haven’t I, mamma?”

“But your French?” I began.

Donald laughed, and so did Walter. As for Sweetheart, she arose in all the dignity of sixteen years, closed her eyes with superb insolence, and, clasping her mother’s waist with one round white arm, marched out of the arbour.

“We tease her too much,” said Donald.

“She’s growing up fast; we ought not to call her ‘Sweetheart’ when she puts her hair up,” added Walter.

“She’s going to put it up in October, when she goes back to school,” said Donald. “Jack, she will hate you if you keep reminding her of her algebra and French.”

“Then I’ll stop,” said I, suddenly conscious what an awful thing it would be if she hated me.

Donald’s two pointers came frisking across the lawn from the kennels, and Donald picked up his gun.

“Here we go again,” said I. “Donny’s going to the coverts after grouse, Walter’s going up on the hill with his dust-shot and arsenic, and I’m going across the fields after butterflies. Why the deuce can’t we all go together, just for once?”

“And take Sweetheart? She would like it if we all went together,” said Walter; “she is tired of seeing Jack net butterflies.”

“Collecting birds and shooting grouse are two different things,” began Donald. “You spoil my dogs by shooting your confounded owls and humming birds.”